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The Former Yugoslavia: The Dark Side Of Football

Ozren Podnar reports from Zagreb

A member of the Croatian FA was accused of punching a linesman, FC Sarajevo is asking for UN intervention against the alleged irregularities in Bosnian soccer and even the usually peaceful Slovenian soccer scene was shaken earlier this year by a noted politician's claim that the current Slovenian national team coach accepted bribes in order to field this or that player.

Events took a more gruesome turn in Serbia, when the secretary of the Serbian FA was shot dead in broad daylight.

The soccer scene in the Balkans has been shaken by a series of scandals of varying degrees at the start of the spring season, making one wonder yet again how on earth the small nations of the former Yugoslavia manage to produce a neverending stream of good players and create competitive national teams amidst legal and moral chaos.

Still, the constant controversies do not seem to hurt the performances of the national teams - Croatia has qualified for the forthcoming Euro 2004 beating neighbours Slovenia in the playoffs, Bosnia missed out on direct qualification by a single goal by drawing 1-1 against direct rivals Denmark, and Serbia&Montenegro were only stopped on the way towards the playoffs by failing to beat Italy in Belgrade.

Croatian FA Slaps Ban on Stimic

A member of the Croatian FA Executive Committe and Hajduk Split sports director Igor Stimac earned himself a month-long suspension after reports of his hitting a linesman during halftime at Hajduk's League game at Rijeka.

Most media, included the sports daily Sportske novosti, reported Stimac insulted, threatened and slapped the linesman Miroslav Jedvaj on the face because he was angry at his calls during the first half of the game.

Stimac, the fiercely temperamental former Croatia central defender, is no stranger to controversy: he was banned for six games by UEFA in 2001 because of his part in another tunnel brawl after a Hajduk - Mallorca Champions League qualifier.

Later that year he was indicted for allegedly beating up a bar owner in Split but the trial is still in progress in the notoriously slow Croatian legal system.

While the press fervently appealed for a harsh punishment for Stimac in the Rijeka affair, the usually meek FA suspended him provisionally for a month pending investigation. Amidst the speculations on the length of the ban to be passed on the temperamental Hajduk official, in an extraordinary turn of events the linesman changed his story.

Contrary to the wording of the official game sheet signed by the referee, Jedvaj now claimed that Stimac in fact did not hit him, but only "unintentionally grazed his face while gesticulating".

"No decision about sanctions against Stimac was taken because of the contradictions between the statements of some participants and the official game sheet." said the Disciplinary Committe chairman Ante Tomas, prompting the media to conclude that another Croatian footballing scandal is on the way towards a cover-up.

This reminded many of the FA's indulgent stance when Dinamo Zagreb's vicepresident Zdravko Mamic, himself Stimac's colleague in the FA Executive Committee, recently claimed that his club had "worked" (sic) with the referees in the past. Elsewhere such statements would have sparked off a thorough investigation; not so in Croatia.

Arguing the Points in Bosnia-Hercegovina

In spite of these "minor bugs", the Croatian Football League is an established competition, unlike the fledgling championship of Bosnia-Hercegovina. The recent scandal involving a mistaken player's identity in the team sheet caused FC Sarajevo to accuse the FA of corruption and seek the intervention of the United Nations.

The motive for the outburst was the decision of the Competition Committee to award the game between Borac and reining champions Leotar to the visitors by 3-0 because Borac had fielded a player not listed in the team sheet.

Having lost the game by 2-0, Leotar appealed after discovering that the home side had used Milorad Babic instead of Milos Babic, the player mistakenly announced in the official documents.

The Committee's decision to award the game to Leotar indirectly hurt the capital's giants Sarajevo and Zeljeznicar, now lagging five points behind Leotar in the race for a spot in the UEFA Cup next season.

"We'll appeal not only to FIFA and UEFA but will also ask the UN High Representative Paddy Ashdown and the anticorruption squad to intervene and help tackle the crime within the FA." said Mirsad Askrabic, Sarajevo's secretary, calling the football in Bosnia and Hercegovina "dirty and criminal".

Borac on the other hand threatened to pull out of the competition if the original result was not reinstated by the Appeals Committee. As is customary in the Balkans, the loudest guy often wins and the pressure again paid off: The decision to award the win to Leotar was overturned and the points were given back to Borac, thus cutting the reining champs' lead over the Sarajevo rivals to a mere two points with eight rounds to go.

Serbian FA's secretary general assassinated in the streets of Belgrade.

While in Bosnia and Croatia they only question the legality of the competition and the conduct of the leading footballing figures, things in Serbia are far worse.

The Secretary General of the Serb-Montenegrin FA Branko Bulatovic was ruthlessly assassinated in a Belgrade street late March, an event which sent shock waves throughout the country and UEFA.

Serbian football mourned and all league games were cancelled for the weekend, but rumours immediately started that the hit was ordered by the football mafia which, supposedly, controls much of the financial routes in Serb and Montenegrin soccer.

The FA officials insisted they had no knowledge why Bulatovic could be a target and dismissed claims that organized crime had any part in local football.

But, the eminent and controversial reporter Nikola Simic fuelled the controversy by claiming Bulatovic indeed was murdered by the mafia, of which he himself was allegedly a prominent member. In an interview for Kurir newspaper Simic accused the late Bulatovic of "having lead parallel lives (...) one as the head of the FA, another as the head of the footballing underground".

Bulatovic is not the first major football figure to have been killed in Serbia&Montenegro. Four years ago the infamous Zeljko Raznjatovic "Arkan" was shot in Belgrade, although the motives may have had nothing to do with sports but rather with politics and/or organized crime (provided there is a distinction between the two in Serbia).

Arkan, an indicted war criminal and a major Serb warlord during the conflicts in Bosnia and Croatia, had been FC Obilic's owner and president, turning the formerly mediocre second division club into League champions ahead of Partizan and Red Star in 1998. After his demise, Obilic has sunk into mid table under the leadership of Arkan's widow, the flamboyant folk singer Ceca Raznjatovic.

Ozren Podnar

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